Saturday, April 09, 2022

New generation of cancer-preventing vaccines could wipe out tumors before they form

Good news! Cancer is history (soon)! This is only the beginning!

Very recommendable! This is a long survey article!

"Vaccines to prevent certain types of cancer already exist. They target viruses: hepatitis B virus, which can trigger liver cancer, and human papillomavirus, which causes cervical and some other cancers. But most cancers are not caused by viruses. The Lynch vaccine trial will be one of the first clinical tests of a vaccine to prevent nonviral cancers. ...
Their efforts have been propelled by new insights into the genetic changes in early cancers, along with the recognition that because even nascent tumors can suppress the immune system, the vaccines should work best in healthy people who have never had cancer. ...
Researchers are trying out several vaccine strategies. Some use so-called tumor antigens, molecular markers that are scarce on healthy cells but plentiful on cancer cells. The Lynch vaccine instead targets “neoantigens,” a potent type of antigen only found on tumor cells. Some deploy just a single antigen whereas others use a large number, in a bid to broadly shield against cancer. ...
in 1989 discovered the first tumor-associated antigen: a version of MUC1, a sugar-laden cell-surface protein. The altered version dots many types of cancer cells. ...
testing a DNA-based vaccine [in 2021] targeting a different antigen that marks many tumors: hTERT, a small chunk of telomerase, an enzyme that protects chromosomes as cancer cells proliferate.
Results of a trial testing the vaccine’s safety in 93 patients in remission after treatment for various cancers were encouraging. ...
a vaccine that combines six tumor antigens, including hTERT and MUC1 ...
This spring [2022] ... will begin to safety test a vaccine containing mutated KRAS peptides in 25 men and women who haven’t had cancer but are at high risk because of an inherited mutation or family history. KRAS is like pancreatic cancer’s Achilles’ heel ... It’s the first of several genes to get mutated. ...
Lynch syndrome cancers also sport a predictable set of neoantigens. That’s because patients’ DNA repair problem leads to “frameshift” mutations, which shift how a cell’s proteinmaking machinery reads a gene, scrambling the resulting protein in a consistent way. A peptide vaccine containing a few of these neoantigens ... caused no serious side effects when tested in people with cancer. A similar vaccine designed for mice with Lynch syndrome reduced tumor growth, researchers reported in July 2021 ...
The vaccine ... will test is more ambitious: It consists of viruses modified to carry DNA for a whopping 209 frameshift neoantigens found in Lynch tumors. ..."

New generation of cancer-preventing vaccines could wipe out tumors before they form | Science | AAAS Shots enter early clinical trials for healthy people at high risk for disease






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